The invention relates generally to providing remote service assistance in an automated or semi-automated manner, such as by automatically providing service suggestions which may be automatically implemented or implemented by a customer without on-site assistance.
In a variety of industrial, commercial, medical, and research contexts, various pieces of equipment may be employed on a day-to-day basis to accomplish or facilitate the work being performed at a facility. In many instances, the facility may rely upon a third party to provide service for some or all of the equipment at the site to ensure that the equipment remains operational and available. For example, in an industrial setting, production equipment or computer resources that are in operation in a continuous or near continuous manner may be serviced by an off-site party that provides servicing as needed or requested. Similarly, hospitals, clinics, and research facilities may utilize another party to service some or all of the diagnostic, monitoring, and/or imaging equipment at a site so that the equipment remains available where and when it is needed.
Such an arrangement, however, may impose burdens on the service provider that are difficult to overcome in an efficient and cost effective manner. For example, a service provider may utilize field personnel, such as field engineers, to provide on-site support to a variety of clients. As one might expect, such on-site support is resource and time intensive, requiring highly trained personnel to travel to various customer sites to provide support. As a result, support time is lost to travel, and other factors associated with maintaining field personnel and services. Furthermore, the customer experiences downtime due to system problems that, in some cases, can be addressed without the aid of a field engineer, such as by the customer implementing the fix themselves.
In many instances, a problem being experienced at a client site may be diagnosed based on information, such as error logs or messages, available at the site. In such instances, one or more solutions or fixes to the problem may be indicated. Depending on the problem, implementing such fixes may not require the technical expertise or experience of a field engineer or technician. In such instances, it may be undesirable to provide a costly and time-consuming on-site service call.